Posted on 03/14/2002 5:07:26 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
This is a continuation of the infamous thread New Zealander Builds Hobbit Hole originally posted on January 26, 2001 by John Farson, who at the time undoubtedly thought he had found a rather obscure article that would elicit a few replies and die out. Without knowing it, he became the founder of the Hobbit Hole. For reasons incomprehensible to some, the thread grew to over 4100 replies. It became the place for hobbits and friends of hobbits to chit chat and share LoTR news and views, hang out, and talk amongst ourselves in the comfort of familiar surroundings.
In keeping with the new posting guidelines, the thread idea is continuing here, as will the Green Dragon Inn, our more structured spin-off thread, as soon as we figure out how to move all the good discussion that has been had there. As for the Hobbit Hole, we will just start fresh, bringing only a few mathoms such as the picture above with us to make it feel like home, and perhaps a walk down memory lane:
Our discussion has been light:
It very well may be that a thread named "New Zealander builds Hobbit hole" will end up being the longest Tolkien thread of them all, with some of the best heartfelt content... Sorry John, but I would have rather it had been one with a more distinguished title!… post 252 - HairOfTheDog
However, I can still celebrate, with quiet dignity, the fact that what started as a laugh about some wacko in New Zealand has mutated and grown into a multifaceted discussion of the art, literature, and philosophy that is Tolkien. And now that I've managed to write the most pompous sentence of my entire life, I agree, Rosie… post 506 - JenB
Hah! I was number 1000!! (Elvish victory dance... wait, no; that would be too flitty) … post 1001 - BibChr
Real men don't have to be afraid of being flitty! Go for it. – post 1011 – HairOfTheDog
Seventeen years to research one mystical object seems a bit excessive… post 1007 - JenB
Okay...who's the wise guy who didn't renew Gandalf's research grant?… post 1024 – Overtaxed
To the very philosophical:
…Judas Iscariot obviously was a good man, or he wouldn't have been chosen to be one of the Apostles. He loved Jesus, like all of the Apostles, but he betrayed him. Yet without his betrayal, the Passion and Crucifixion would never have occurred, and mankind would not have been redeemed. So without his self-destruction infinite good would not have been accomplished. I certainly do not mean this to be irreverant but it seems to me that this describes the character of Gollum, in the scenes so movingly portrayed above… Lucius Cornelius Sulla
To fun but heartfelt debates about the integrity and worth of some of the characters…
…Anyone else notice how Boromir treats the hobbits? He's very fond of them but he seems to think of them as children - ruffling Frodo's hair, calls them all 'little ones'. He likes them, but I don't think he really respects them… post 1536 - JenB
Yes... Tolkien told us not to trust Boromir right off the bat when he began to laugh at Bilbo, until he realized that the Council obviously held this hobbit in high esteem. What a pompous dolt… post 1538 - HairOfTheDog
…I think almost every fault of his can be traced directly back to his blindness to anything spiritual or unseen. He considers the halflings as children, because that is what they look like. He considers the only hope of the ring to be in taking it and using it for a victory in the physical realm. He cannot see what the hobbits are truly made of, he cannot see the unseen hope of what the destruction of the ring might mean--the destruction of Sauron himself, and he cannot see the unseen danger that lies in the use of the ring itself… I just feel sorry for Boromir--he is like a blind but honorable man, trying to take the right path on the road but missing the right path entirely because he simply cannot see it… post 1548 - Penny1
Boromir isn't a jerk, he's a jock… post 2401 – Overtaxed
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Oh, I think by the time Frodo reaches the Cracks, he's not even himself anymore! I think he's not only on the brink of a dangerous place physically, he's on the brink of losing himself completely during the exchange with Gollum. But for some reason, the take-over isn't complete till he actually has to throw the Ring in. The person speaking to Gollum is not Frodo, but the "Wheel of Fire" that Sam sees. After the Ring is destroyed, Frodo not only comes back to himself, but comes back with the unbearable (to him) knowledge of what it's like to be completely without compassion. I think that's why it's so important to him to be compassionate in the Shire… post 2506 - 2Jedismom
…Regarding Frodo's compassion... it's a little too much at the end. Even Merry tells him that he's going to have to quit being so darn nice. But you're right. He's learned a lesson about evil that very few ever learn since it wasn't an external lesson but an internal one. (Those kinds of lessons have the greatest impact) Not only did he totally succumb to it, but he was rather ruthless to my little Smeagol… post 2516 - carton253
Well that Frodo was a big mean bully! (to Smeagol)… post 2519 – Overtaxed
So as you can see, everything JRR Tolkien (and Peter Jackson) is welcome here in our New Row, our soon-to-be familiar New Hobbit Hole…; philosophy, opinion, good talk and frequent silliness.
Oh, and I wanted to shoot Halle Berry. If LotR doesn't get nominated there is no way I'm watching next year. Four hours of moronic self-congragulatory Hollywood stars are not my idea of fun.
We were screaming for Legolas and his deadly arrows to be up in the balcony.
So the strangest thing just happened to me.
I'm sitting here in the Labs, post-Oscars, having just run my guests home, and I'm getting ready to make a few notes on things and go to bed when there was a sound... a shuddering, like a great wind rushing through the room... and papers blew up in a flurry all around me. I jumped up and began to snatch them out of the air, pausing, my task forgotten, as I saw Gandalf The White standing in the doorway.
He held out his hand, and there in his palm, I saw the Palantir, and in the depths of that glass sphere, I saw something familiar. I leaned closer. Yes... it was the last few moments of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. There's Sam... there's Frodo... there's the distant fires of Mount Doom.
I looked up at Gandalf, afraid to ask him anything. He's much more imposing in person, keep in mind. "Ummm... this is very nice," I said, smiling as broadly as I could, "but I actually saw this already a few times..." The fire I saw in his eyes, the fire that had burned away his old persona at the bottom of some forgotten pit of Moria, caused me to cringe back a bit, afraid I had offended him. When he spoke, though, it was with a deceptive sort of quiet, a hush. "Keep watching," he said.
So I looked again, and I saw the last shot of the film fade to black, and the first of the end titles came up... ... only it didn't. It wasn't the first of the end titles.
The screen said "Coming this Christmas," and a sudden electric shock ran down my spine as I realized what Gandalf was showing me. "The journey continues" came up, then gave way to a shot of a pin lying in the grass, shaped like a leaf. Someone leaned in, picked it up, and the camera TILTS UP to the face of Aragorn.
And as soon as you see those shots of Aragorn and Gimli and Legolas on the hunt for Merry and Pippin, you know that everything you liked about FELLOWSHIP is going to be back this time around. Andrew Lesnie's Academy-Award winning cinematography is just as grand and sweeping this time out. The first few images show us the search for Merry and Pippin, but quickly, we are reintroduced to Gandalf The White in an image that should give you some idea of what I encountered here in the Labs tonight, a powerful wizard, bristling with barely restrained might. This is not the frail old man of the first film; not at all.
The dialogue flew past, and I wasn't prepared to write it all down. "So... Gandalf Grayhaven believes he has found the Lost King Of Gondor," muses Saruman, even as Gandalf speaks directly to Isildur's conflicted heir. "Sauron is not yet so powerful that he is without fear. He fears you, Aragorn. He fears what you may become." There are shots here hinting at the future of Aragorn, at the destiny that is his to claim, and the trailer just keeps ramping up, building steam.
We see Sam and Frodo in the Dead Marshes. "The Ring..." says Frodo. "It grows heavier." Galadriel speaks to someone, pain on her face: "Frodo will not survive this task."
And then we're seeing Theoden and Grima Wormtongue (dear god, Brad Dourif looks perfect) and Faramir and Eowyn and Arwen laid out as if dead, and the images just start to race by, and we're seeing landscapes and that glorious Howard Shore score just keeps building, and every single frame of Helm's Deep is intense, foreboding, with a couple of battle shots that will make your jaw drop (the ladders being thrown up against the wall and knocked away just as fast while sheets of arrows volley back and forth), and then, HOLY SH_T WAS THAT TREEBEARD?! And even more shots flash by, and wait a minute, was that four minutes? How can that already be four minutes? I WANT MORE!! I WANT MORE!! I WANT...
... and then those last few shots creep up on you, Gollum creeping down the side of the mountain towards the sleeping Sam and Frodo, hissing under his breath about "the cursed hobbitsesss... cursed thievessssss..." and just as he's reaching out for the Ring, Frodo opens his eyes, and...
... Gandalf snatched the Palantir away from me. I cried out and reached for it, but he shook his head. "Greedy boy, I have others to show this to, and far to travel still tonight."
"Just one more time," I begged, but this only made him laugh, and then I could see the old Gandalf in there, behind those kind eyes.
"It will be in theaters on Friday," he said, "in over 40 different international markets. It will be the same trailer worldwide, all four minutes of it, and New Line is working some magic of their own just to have it ready. It will be there on March 29, and you can see it to your heart's content then. In the meantime, maybe Harry or Quint can fill in some details you missed."
I wanted to ask him if he was on his way to Austin, or if he'd already been, but by that point he was gone, and I found myself here, typing frantically. I hope Gandalf appears for these other guys tonight, because I'm on sensory overload trying to describe what I saw. Maybe they can tell you what Theoden says. Hell, I think the scene in the trailer is the scene Harry was there to watch them film with Bernard Hill. All I know is, as a LOTR fan, I was very pleased by what I saw and heard. Fans around the world are getting a love letter this Friday, cut by Jackson himself, and it doesn't feel like any normal trailer. It feels like a promise: "In December, we're going to do it again."
And ya know what?
I believe him.
I just like the part when Merry wakes up and asks Aragorn for tobacco.
Ok, who all is going to see it this Friday?
Where were you last night? - we had a party and you never came!
I think this sounds great (below), even the cut to Galadriel (should we say that happens "off page" in the books?): Her exposition narration really worked in the first one.
We see Sam and Frodo in the Dead Marshes. "The Ring..." says Frodo. "It grows heavier." Galadriel speaks to someone, pain on her face: "Frodo will not survive this task."
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